


Crude Engagements

by Tassledown



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Arranged Marriage, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 11:32:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19019053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassledown/pseuds/Tassledown
Summary: "So you're fourteen now, have you got all the society balls starting this summer?" James teased Sirius, under one of the trees down by the lake.A joke about summer plans turns into a dreadful conversation among four close friends that reveals a stark difference between the lives of Remus and Peter as ordinary families and two houses living with the reality of political power and money. Even sharper, however, is James' worry of just how much Sirius hasn't said about his family before.





	Crude Engagements

"So you're fourteen now, have you got all the society balls starting this summer?" James teased Sirius, under one of the trees down by the lake. They were, all four of them, waiting for the urge to study to strike again before their final exams third year, and James had to admit to a little curiosity about his friend who actually spent his time engaged in the high class activities his parents scorned.

"What’s different about that at fourteen?" Remus asked.

"If your family is extremely crude, engagements," Sirius explained, his accent sarcastically aristocratic again. "It's kind of stupidly young for it, and most families want to at least see OWL scores first, but some start introducing their kids then... Nah, I get to get out of them, I'm already engaged."

James froze and then turned to stare at him. Peter dropped his pen he'd been twirling and Remus just stared at Sirius, who was lying on his back on the grass. 

"What!?” James choked out. “To who?"

"One of my cousins. It's traditional, for the heir to marry a female cousin if there's one available."

"So what, like Narcissa?" James asked. Narcissa wasn't that bad. He remembered her a little, she'd graduated a year or two ago.

"No," Sirius gave James a bewildered look. "Didn't you ever wonder why Bellatrix hadn't married yet?"

James blinked a few times, then made a face. "I thought it was because of, uh, y'know. Doesn't everyone say she's usually at the parties and hanging out with..."

"Can either of you explain what's going on?" Remus asked. “I’ve never heard of any of this.”

James went awkwardly silent with embarrassment, and Sirius turned away to pick up a fallen leaf as though it was suddenly deeply interesting.

Peter answered instead. “Its something the really old families do, if they still have a lot of money and a Wizengamot seat and everything. I think everyone just talks a whole lot and gossips.”

“That's basically right,” Sirius said, spinning the leaf between his fingers. “And the best gossip is who's fucking who or who has a daughter or son the right age to make sure the family seat stays with the right kind of people  - but only a Black is good enough for the Black heir.”

“Why do you know this, James?” Remus asked him in an almost accusatory tone, as though this was all his fault somehow.

“My parents aren't taking any marriage offers before I turn seventeen!” The look on Remus and Peter's faces told him that wasn’t as good a defence as he thought it was. “It’s like Peter said - we  _ have _ a Wizengamot seat, even if Dad appointed it out. I can't  _ not  _ marry, but if I find someone I like while at school, they'd prefer that than trying to introduce me to everyone.”

“Good luck working on Evan's, by the way,” Sirius said. “You've got four years left, you might want to get a move on.”

Remus frowned between them again. “If the parties are usually about marriages or politics, why does your cousin still go if she's engaged?” 

Sirius sighed, the joking leaving his face and his voice in aristocratic sterility. “Because Bellatrix is in her twenties.”

“I heard…” Peter began nervously. James wildly tried to decide how to derail him if most of his society knowledge came from the tabloids that grabbed their information piecemeal from the society pages his mother already derided as gossip rags. He couldn’t think of anything in time. “I heard she met the Dark Lord at one they held at your  _ house _ once?”

“Yeah, she did,” Sirius said curtly. “Although my parents hardly still invite him by.”

“But she's still meeting him?”

Sirius twisted to look at Peter sidelong and his accent dropped, an effect that sent James’ stomach down with it. “What else is a twenty-something society girl waiting for her fiance to grow up gonna do for fun, Peter?”

James cut them off before that got more crude. “How long have you been engaged for, anyways?”

Sirius relaxed again and his accent rose again. “About since I came out a boy, I guess.”

Listening to him jump between registers was making james’ head spin as he tried to figure out if he should just throw him in the lake instead. He didn’t otherwise seem that upset, at least not about the engagement itself but that merely confused him more.

James tried to make sense of this again. “But… isn't Bellatrix the cousin who meets you at the  _ train _ ? Like your first year, at Christmas?”

Remus startled visibly. “My mother thought she was your  _ mother.  _ Step-mother, at best _. _ ”

“She's twelve years older than me, yes.” Sirius sighed, closing his eyes. “So what?”

“Did she really sleep with the Dark Lord?” Peter asked, eagerly.

“I’ve never asked,” Sirius said dryly, before he sat up and smiled. “Remus, what'd you think of McGonagall's study questions? I'm not sure how much about animagi is gonna come up on the test, do you think we should be careful about how much else we read since then, or is she not likely to be suspicious?"

James recognized a subject change when he saw one, and he joined in discussing their last assignments until they were all retreating to their rooms and he could slip inside Sirius' curtains with him and silence the curtains to not be overheard.

Sirius lowered his wand and sighed. "What did you want to ask?" he sighed.

"Something really bothered you about that. I mean, Peter and Remus don't really get how big a deal that is - they both think it’s all insane, and they're kinda right aren’t they? - but like... Normally you  _ hate _ talking about family. Why doesn't this bother you like the rest does? Didn't you want to have any  _ choice _ ?"

Sirius made a face and crossed his legs on his bed, tucking his hands around one of his ankles. "Your parents don't really read the society pages, do they?"

"My mum calls them 'gossip rags', so I guess she doesn't really read them a lot, no."

"...I have three cousins, not two," Sirius admitted. "My cousin, Andromeda, ran away from her engagement to McNair about six years ago now. She eloped with a muggleborn in her year."

He bit his lip and James got up and moved up the bed to sit next to him. Sirius startled, then relaxed and leaned into James' side as he came to sit next to him. Sirius was a little smaller than him, in build and proportions, and he nearly wound up in James' lap this time. They'd started cuddling after one of his nightmares in first year and James found it made it easier for him to talk when he did.

"She and Bella were close in age, and... our parents thought Bella knew where she'd gone and where her new husband lived - she'd put down our family address on the certificate, not his, so they'd have had to look him up the muggle way and didn't even know for sure he would be there.

"They locked Bella in her room and two months later they held a society ball, to introduce me to someone my age – the heir can't not be engaged, so they had to replace her if they didn't mean to keep her alive."

James gasped in horror and looked down. Sirius wasn't looking at him. His friend had buried his face mostly in his chest and he felt like he was shivering. James wanted to apologize for bringing it up but he'd had  _ no idea _ ... Sirius hadn't been joking when he said starting engagement parties at fourteen was crude: James had been expecting him to  _ laugh _ , not fall back into his aristocratic accent.

"Narcissa told me what it was for. I was eight, I had no idea: they'd told me she was sick, not that they were trying to  _ kill her _ . They'd invited the Dark Lord and I hadn't really been intending to talk to him, but... He was different. I knew he wasn't nobility, he wasn't dressed right, he didn't talk right, and nobody used a family name - like, what kind of name is  _ Voldemort _ ? It's just bad French.

"He said hi, I assume because I was the heir, and then there was a show duel between Lestrange and Yaxley and I..." Sirius bit his lip and looked up. "I made sure he heard me, when I said my cousin fought better than that. He asked to meet her, and my father had no choice but to produce her again." Flat. "So no, I don't mind being engaged to her. I hope nobody  _ forgets _ it."

"Sirius, you were  _ eight years old _ ," James said. He couldn't think of anything else. He'd been  _ eight _ , when his parents had tried to kill his fiancee.  _ Eight _ , when he met the Dark Lord. James’ greatest excitement at eight was getting his first real broom. "Was he trying to  _ recruit you _ ?"

"Yeah," Sirius shrugged. "I figured that out later. They didn't stop having him over because he was fucking my cousin, James, they stopped last year when he asked me over the summer if I intended to aid him when I grew up and I told him maybe when he stopped killing people for telling him no."

James choked and had to cough, hard, to remember how to breathe. "You --!"

"I know," Sirius laughed. "I think my father wanted to  _ kill me _ . He cut the dinner off early and, man, was he angry, but Voldemort didn't try anything then and he hasn't been back."

"What did your cousin think?" James had to ask.

Sirius shrugged. "She told me to think more carefully before I spoke next time. She thinks I shouldn't write him off so easily but he doesn't have a lot going for him with the way he  _ acts _ . I don't know what she thinks he's doing that's so different from our parents, but I guess after they tried to kill her I can't really…” Sirius trailer off, his eyes dark and unhappy. “I just don't want her to get hurt. Okay? I know she’s done bad things, but… she's my cousin."

James pulled Sirius close again and leaned down to kiss the top of his head, a little awkwardly but Sirius never seemed to mind. It was what his mother always did that when she tucked him into bed at night. Sirius seemed like he needed it, the affection of being like family, too.

It seemed like that was usually what Sirius was missing, anyways… and what he got from his cousin he was engaged to.

"She sent you the Gryffindor scarf too, didn't she?" James said. He tried to remember that Christmas, but it had been a long time ago.

"Yeah, she did."

"Well maybe she's hoping to keep you safe too. I hope she doesn't do anything stupid trying." Stupider than it seemed she already had, that was. 

Sirius muffled a laugh into James' shirt and nodded. "Are you planning to stay here all night?"

His tone was joking, but he had moved more on top of him, rather than less as he said it and James smiled. "What'd you think I was coming over for, just to interrogate you?"

Sirius grinned and pulled up the covers over them both. "Good."


End file.
